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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 2024)
November 13, 2024 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 3 News cont’d from pg 1 everyone to pick up a copy of it.” The newspaper special issue will be a collection “ This will be a histor- ical news- paper. It’s a keepsake item of some of the most im- portant stories The Skan- Next cont’d from pg 1 escalates as soon as you learn how to walk and go to school and go to the doctor — any institution that has authority over your body at the time is kind of violent towards you, so you learn to deal with violence, especial- ly systemic violence. I don’t think for us it’s any different than before the election, and it won’t be different than the last 10, 15 years. What added precau- tions do we need in a state of violence that we’ve already been deal- ing with? I don’t know. I’m a Black woman. I’m living. I live with happi- ness and joy in my heart everyday. White people don’t have power over me, that’s why I’m a com- munity organizer. I’ve got to teach other people not to let people’s hate and their value systems make you feel less than human, even though they’re set up to dehu- manize you. We have to fight against that every single day, not just in a Trump America. What is your response to local elections? I think anybody that ran an anti-Black cam- paign got the numbers, the donations and sup- port that they needed. I ACA ner has covered, as well as highlights of how the community has grown in the years The Skanner has been in print. This special issue will be re- searched and written by longtime former The Skanner editor Lisa Lov- ing. If you would like to ad- vertise in The Skanner’s special issue, please con- tact Jerry Foster at jer- ry@theskanner.com or 503-285-5555 ext. 506. think no one wanted to center Blackness, espe- cially here in Oregon, and if they did center a Black candidate, they tried to center things that didn’t have anything to do with the color of their skin — unless it was where they grew up. Somebody might be from Northeast Portland, but let’s not talk about how Black they are; let’s talk about how they assimi- lated. Does a second Trump administration change anything about the community organizing work you do? Outside of connecting with my friend who’s a doctor who provides therapy and programs that support people be- ing proactive in their own managed care and emotional care, outside of adding that to our outreach and advocacy, I don’t see much more I can do. If we would’ve organized protests, obvi- ously there would be de- mands, but our demands are the same. The things that we’ve been doing — critical support, mutual aid — those are things we’re go- ing to keep doing. On election night we had two exhibits that cont’d from pg 1 those previously unable to afford it. However, the enhanced subsidies are only guaranteed through the end of 2025, and with Republicans newly in control of the Senate and vying for con- trol of the House, the potential loss of these financial aids could spell trouble for millions of Americans who depend on the ACA. “These historic enrollment numbers are a testament to the need for com- prehensive, quality, affordable health insurance,” said Chiquita Brooks-La- Sure, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “Not only is demand for Marketplace insur- ance coverage at an all-time high, but the Marketplaces are delivering on the Affordable Care Act’s promise to pro- vide the peace of mind that comes with having health insurance to millions of Americans.” While the House remains undecid- ed, with Republicans projected at 215 PHOTO COURTESY OF SOLVE 50th Volunteers Clean Up This past Saturday, the Great Powell Cleanup brought together over 100 dedicated volunteers who took action across 10 locations, successfully removing 1,200 pounds of litter. The event, spanning neighborhoods such as South Tabor, Richmond, Hosford Abernathy, Creston, and three Brooklyn locations, exemplified the community’s commitment to keeping Portland clean and vibrant. Portland’s mayor-elect, Keith Wilson, made an appearance at the Hosford Abernathy cleanup site, lending his support alongside his wife. push conversation and dialogue to promote community engagement, which is to us mutual aid and advocacy. One is at PCC Sylvania, and it’s a replica exhibition that includes the panels from the 2020 protest and has been set up as a place for conversations post-elec- tion. It opened on elec- tion night. We have a gallery downtown, the Black Gallery, where we have a show that’s called Room for Conversation. There’s some very provocative pieces in there from peo- ple like Cheryl Walker and Faith Ringgold and Ernie Barnes — people that are known for con- tributing to the art world images that are around racism and violence, we have those on display. It opened election night and it goes through Inau- guration Day. It provides people with a space for having these tough con- seats to Democrats’ 210 and a majority requiring 218, health policy experts warn that GOP control could end these subsidies. House Speaker Mike John- son suggested at a campaign stop that significant reforms to the ACA could be forthcoming. “The ACA is so deep- ly ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we’ve got a lot of ideas on how to do that,” Johnson as- serted. The states with the highest ACA en- rollment rates in 2024 were largely conservative strongholds supporting President-elect Trump, including Flor- ida with 4.2 million enrollees, Texas with 3.5 million, and Georgia with 1.3 million. These five states—Florida, Tex- as, California, Georgia, and North Car- olina—accounted for 55% of total ACA enrollment. Each state uses the federal Healthcare.gov enrollment platform and has yet to expand Medicaid under the ACA, making the ACA subsidies particularly vital for affordable health- versations. And we’re trying to use this space not only to connect with community that needs to kind of mediate through what’s happening, but also to look at what’s hap- pening so we can build up what our resiliency will be for the next four years. We even have an oral history booth in here so people can document their feelings and have that as an archive for the future. We’re working with a doctor, we have this space where, when you walk in, not only is there fine art on the walls, we’ve put in lounge seating so there’s all these places to sit down. I found the place I felt safest as a child, going through foster care and all the other stuff in my life, was my grandma’s house. I would go there and there were things in the house that were al- ways the same. Whether it was 1980 or 1990, you were going to find some Ebony magazines, some Jet magazines, you were going to find a comfort- able pillow — a little warmth in the space that made you know you were in a safe space. On election night, we had probably 40-some- thing people that came through for that opening event, and we were all in there drinking wine, watching the election re- turns on the big screen, and by the time eight o’clock rolled around we were drinking tequila and whiskey and it was cool, cause everybody was comforting each other. But it really land- ed as the place we want- ed. Like, where are our people going to go with that energy? We weren’t interested in protesting because we knew the out- come, unfortunately. We knew what was going to care access. The subsidies have also substantially impacted middle-income families, in- cluding those with incomes above 400% of the federal poverty level, or approx- imately $103,280 for a family of four. For this group, enhanced subsidies have capped insurance premiums at 8.5% of income; without the subsidies, premiums could exceed 20% of income, according to Kaiser Family Founda- tion (KFF) Vice President Cynthia Cox. Cox cautioned that if subsidies expire, middle-income enrollees would likely be hit the hardest, as many would be priced out of coverage entirely. “A lot of those folks would drop coverage,” she noted. ACA enrollment has also surged rap- idly in states like Texas and Mississip- pi, where growth rates have exceeded 200% since 2020. Notably, these states had some of the highest uninsured rates before introducing the enhanced subsidies. Without Medicaid expan- happen. So we thought, if nothing else we can share desserts and wine with our community and we can let everybody know that everything’s going to be ok, and say look, we’ve got each oth- er. And as long as we’ve got each other, we can al- ways organize and make our lives better. Contin- ue to organize, continue to look out for each other. For more information on these exhibits, visit https://theblackgalleryp- dx.com. Lakayana Drury Drury is the founder, executive director and chief visionary o cer of Word Is Bond, a leader- ship incubator for young Black men in Portland. He gave The Skanner his thoughts on how the presidential campaigns failed to address the needs of the young men he works with, how to better engage with youth See NEXT on page 6 sion, the ACA marketplace has been the primary avenue for affordable insur- ance. Enhanced subsidies, which reduce premiums for eligible enrollees by an average of 44%, or about $705 per year, have made health insurance more ac- cessible than ever. However, if Congress fails to renew them, the Congressional Budget O ce (CBO) projects that ACA enrollment could fall from 22.8 million in 2025 to 15.4 million by 2030 as mil- lions of Americans lose affordable op- tions. Without financial support, many of these individuals—who have come to rely on the ACA for medical peace of mind—could be forced to go without insurance, leading to even higher rates of medical debt, which stood at $220 bil- lion nationwide in 2021. For now, ACA enrollees can rest as- sured that their 2025 premiums will remain stable if they enroll during the current open enrollment period. Read more at TheSkanner.com
